
LETTER 



MM. DE GASPARIN, MARTIN, COCHIN, AND LABOULAYE, 



0pl ^ttWiriitiatt ^mti^ 



OF NEW YORK. 



TRJlJr SKATED BIT MJlRY' L.. BOOTH. 




NetD ^ork: 

C. S. WESTCOTT & CO., UNION PRINTING HOUSE, 
No. 79 John Street. 

1866. 



b 



• 






INTRODUCTION. 



The authors of the following letter addressed it to the Loyal Pub- 
lication Society, which had closed its labors before the letter arrived ; 
but some members of the late Society, convinced that this missive 
deserves to be known and weighed by the American people in the 
present grave situation of our national affairs, have resolved to give 
publicity to it. Gasparin, Laboulaye, Martin, and Cochin, have 
proved themselves warm, judicious, and thoroughly-informed friends 
of our country and her great contest during the whole Civil War. 
The Loyal Publication Society has published a number of their pro- 
ductions as its documents ; and when such historians, statesmen, 
patriots, and lovers of fi*eedom, communicate from afar their opin- 
ion on our public affairs, having in view no interest of their own, 
and having received no suggestion from this country — no call what- 
ever to give us their thoughts — then, indeed, we may receive what 
they give as the impartial voice of history rather than a forward 
meddling with a cause with which they have no concern. Our cause 
is the cause of every lover of his kind, of real progress, and of un- 
biased justice and untainted truth. They know our arduous strug- 
gle in its details, without being individually affected by them. 
They are interested in our successes and failures, as Christians 
are deeply interested in the spread of religion or its rebuffs over 
the whole globe. We thank them, and feel sure that many of 
our fellow-citizens will do the same. 

'05 






^^>:i LETTER 



MM. DE GASPARIN, MARTIN, COCHIN, and LABOULAYE, 



LOYAL PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF NEW YORK. 



TRANSIjATED by MARY L. BOOTH. 



To the Members of the Loyal Publication Society of New York : 

Gentlemen : You know us already ; phrases of introduction are use- 
less between us. Our end is the same— the defence, so long as it shall be 
in peril, of the holy cause contested in America. The peril which seemed 
averted has just sprung up anew. It is necessary, therefore, that you 
should know once more that your European friends are on your side. 
However weak their support may be, you will not disdain it. 



It costs us nothing to do justice to Mr. Johnson. He has fought and 
suffered under your flag. Several of his acts have been stamped with 
lofty and earnest intellect. Following in Mr. Lincoln's footsteps, he 
has understood the necessity of putting an end as speedily as possible to 
the period of exceptional powers; he has set the example of the head of a 
government hastening to abdicate all dictatorship and to restore the 
national liberties in full. We are in a good position to applaud — we 
who have unceasingly predicted that you would crown your struggle by 
thus pardoning the vanquished, disbanding your armies, re-establishing 
the regular working of your institutions, and showing the world for the 
first time a constitution emerging intact from civil war. 

n. 

Unhappily, Mr. Johnson has undertaken to separate what is indissolubly 
joined together ; he has believed himself able to establish union at the 
expense of emancipation ; he has adopted a programme which may be 



Bummed up as follows : « Let us undertake but one thing at a time ; first 
of all, the re-establishment of the Union and of legal order ; by-and-by, 
we can think about completing emancipation, placing results side by side 
with principles, protecting the former slaves, making men of them, and 
even elevating them to the rank of citizens. For the present, they must 
be given up unconditionally to the absolute power of their old masters ; 
for wo cannot interfere with the latter without fettering the independence 
of the Southern States, restricting their constitutional jurisdiction, offend- 
ing their susceptibilities, and delaying or endangering their return." 

With a logic, the cold and inflexible rigor of which appals us, Mr. 
Johnson has proceeded toward the single end which he has proposed to 
himself Like a man who throws aside one of the data of the problem 
to be solved, he has boldly drawn up his political formulas. 

Congress passes the Freedmen's Bureau Bill ; Mr, Johnson does not 
stop to consider whether the poor blacks, placed face to face with the 
Southern government and the Southern courts, will have any chance 
whatever of obtaining justice ; it suffices for him that the bill belongs to that 
side of the question which he is determined not to know, and he vetoes it 
without proposing any more moderate one in its place. The important 
point is to suppress all federal protection. Perish the negroes, if they 
are an obstacle to the re-establishment of the Union ! 

Another bill is adopted by Congress. This time, the point in question 
is only to secure civil rights to the freedmen — the right to buy, sell, and 
hold property, to marry, to be under the jurisdiction of the common law, 
to be subject to common penalties. No matter, this also belongs to the 
side of the question which Mr. Johnson persists in ignoring; this is in 
opposition to his theory ; this would irritate the South; this would give 
rise to the eventual interference of the central power ; and the veto re- 
commences its work. 

This veto has been overruled, as we know, by a two-third majority of 
both Houses of Congress, which nothing has succeeded in shaking. But the 
fact that it has been possible for affairs to come to such a pass, suffices to 
measure the enormity of the error into which Mr. Johnson has fallen. 
See how far the South, patronized by Mr. Johnson, now pushes it preten- 
sions ! See to what a point it proposes to maintain slavei-y ! Those who 
doubted that emancipation, deprived of its practical results, was a lying 
delusion, know henceforth ou what to rely. The last veto has thrown 
light on what was before obscure ; none can longer hesitate. The neces- 
sity of putting an end to the negro question has assumed the character of 
a self-evident axiom. 

m. 

This necessity Mr. Johnson denies, or rather systematically forgets. 
He talks plausibly of the duty of being just to the South, but he forgets 
the duty of being just to the men who have shed their blood to suppress 
the rebellion of the South. He talks plausibly of the equality of states, 



but he forgets the equality of men. He talks plausibly of public liberties, 
but he forgets personal liberties. He talks plausibly of peace, but he 
forgets that justice is the condition of peace. He talks plausibly of the 
Union, but he forgets that the Union cannot be re-established so long as 
the least vestige remains of the slavery question. 

We who have long and ardently desired the restoration of the South 
have never for an instant supposed that such a restoration could be 
effected without the precautions, indispensable in such cases, designed to 
prevent the war from breaking out anew. 

So long as the slavery question shall continue, the war will not have 
been ended. Now, the question will continue if emancipation is sepa- 
rated from its results, if the former slave does not become a man and a 
citizen, if he is not protected during the transition period, and if the 
federal government shrinks from the measures of humanity and justice 
which the past clearly enforces on the future. 

IV. 

To proclaim emancipation and to deny equality is to take back wi'.li one 
hand what you give with the other. In the slave there is first of all a 
man. By act of violence, or slavery, he is deprived, as long as this vio- 
lence lasts, of the rights conferred on him by his quality of manhood, his 
birth in the country where he resides, and the terms of the general con- 
stitution, but on the day that the violence ceases, the right of manhood 
revives. Free the slave and the man remains. 

Among you, in particular, this is evident. Your constitution asserts in 
explicit terms the equality of all who are born on your soil. 

A single exception is provided for, namely, slavery. You have just 
generously effaced it. From this time forth, there are, there can be, none 
but equals on the soil of America. 

Doubtless, you might have resolved upon a restricted emancipation; of 
the former slave, you might have made a serf; you might have subjected 
him, for a fixed time, to the apprenticeship system. You did not wish to 
do this ; you did not stop halfway in yon-.- generous undertaking : you 
did not proclaim a partial liberty ! You abolished slavery uncondition- 
ally. In proclaiming emancipation, therefore, you proclaimed equality. 

Restrictions and reservations cannot afterward be made. See, there- 
fore, what objections are met by all those attempts at reaction which pre- 
tend to lessen emancipation by separating it from its results. When Mr. 
Johnson lays his hand on civil equality, the human conscience is startled. 
As regards political equality, a secret instinct warns us all that slavery 
will subsist so long as the inferiority of the negro race is maintained. 
At the bottom, it is the slavery question that continues under discussion. 
Deprived, xmder the pretext of race, and on account of their color, of the 
rights which belong to other Americans, shorn of the guarantees that 
protected them, deprived of the power of elevating themselves, abandoned 
to the justice of their old masters, and compelled to wait for the latter to 



be pleased some day to take the lead in final emancipation, the negroes 
will soon ask whether the bill of 1866 really deserves the name of the 
Emancipation Bill. 



It is often pretended that Mr. Lincoln would have acted like his suc- 
cessor. Those who hold this language forget one thing, namely, that Mr. 
Lincoln always walked in harmony with Congress. 

The harmony between the President and Congress guaranteed another 
harmony, that of the two causes blended in one, union and emancipation. 

Certainly, Mr. Lincoln aspired to the re-establishment of the Union, and 
at the time of his death was paving the way for the return of the South, 
accompanied with a general amnesty. But in a heart like his, there was 
room for the rights of the negroes by the side of the pardon of the whites. 

What Mr. Lincoln would have done may be easily divined. It is only 
necessary to read in the history of that truly great man the successive acts 
which, by virtue of an uninterrupted progress, rose to the level of perfect 
justice. Try to imagine Mr. Lincoln abjuring all his principles, abandon- 
ing a race of which he had constituted himself the protector, and by which 
he felt himself beloved, thrusting far from him the party which had 
elected and supported him, and substituting his will for that of Congress ! 
Try, yQu will not succeed ! 

To understand what Mr. Lincoln would have done it is only necessary to 
see what Congress, which unceasingly thought and acted in harmony with 
him, continues to demand. Mr. Lincoln never would have dreamed of 
proclaiming an emancipation shorn of its results. In abolishing slavery, 
he would have abolished the servile system. He would have imposed on 
the rebel states the condition of accepting entire emancipation ; that is to 
say, emancipation with equality. While taking prudential considerations 
fully into account, and perhaps avoiding suddenly intrusting the negroes 
with universal suffrage, he would have opened to them the doors of the 
common law. 

And the return of the South would not have been delayed thereby an 
hour. On the contrary, it would have been hastened ; for Congress would 
not have thought of excluding the rebel states ! Who believes that the 
South, on the morrow of its defeat, touched by a magnanimous pardon, 
and happy to seize the hand that was extended to it, would have made 
more difficulty in passing two amendments than one, and in accept- 
ing the full liberty instead of the partial liberty of the negroes ? All 
would have been adopted ; the guarantees for the transition period would 
not have encountered the slightest objection ; the eleven States would 
have resumed their place in Congress ; and the triumph of the Union 
would have been complete, together with the triumph of emancipation. 

In unison with Congress, Mr. Lincoln would have accomplished all this 
without difficulty, with that impulse of the heart which has the gift of 



Working miracles, those broad sympathies which throw down all barriers, 
and that generous impudence which succeeds where wisdom fails. 

VI. 

The abolition of slavery, the transitional protection of the freedmen, the 
equality of races, the gradual institution of negro suffrage, a universal 
amnesty, the return of the eleven States to Congress, the re-establish- 
ment of the regular working of affairs, the suppression of dictatorship, 
the disbanding of a great part of the army, the speedy redemption of the 
public debt, and the encouragement of Southern colonization, all these 
things were inseparably connected, if not in the mind of Mr. Lincoln, at 
least in the noble necessities of his policy and that of Congress. The 
simple secret of this policy consisted in not separating the two words 
which had composed the programme of the four years' conflict, Union 
and Emancipation. 

So long as Mr. Lincoln lived, the two causes and the two words formed 
a single unit, as the President and Congress formed a single party — the 
national party. 

Since that time, we have seen this unity destroyed. Union has made 
war on emancipation ; the President has entered into conflict with Con- 
gress. As long as this division lasts, success is impossible. The condi- 
tion of success is for the President to walk in harmony with Congress. 
This was the condition of success during the war. Mr. Lincoln did not 
mistake it for an instant. At times, perhaps, moderating some impatient 
spirits, he always remained in the current of generous public opinion. This 
was also the condition of success after the wai-. To re-establish peace and 
order, it was necessary not to depart from this great current. On the day 
that he did so, Mr. Johnson endangered the success of the reconstruction 
which should have been the glory of his name. 

May he again take his place in and at the head of the movement of 
freedom! there still is time. May harmony be established anew between 
the public powers : may emancipation resume its place by the side of 
union in Mr. Johnson's policy ! But it must be done speedily, or it will be 
too late. 

vn. 

It is said that the Democratic party which destroyed America the first 
time, is preparing a second time to destroy it. It sets to work in pre- 
cisely the same manner as of old. To make the South its lever against 
the North, to excite the passions of the slaveholders, to stir up hatred 
against the Puritans, the Yankees, to wage a deadly war on abolitionism, 
to strengthen st^te rights, and to protect the domestic institutions of the 
South — this is what it has done, and what it is making preparations again 
to do. Dissension between the North and South is necessary to it. If 
the slavery question were ended, the party would have no reason for ex- 
isting ; it clings, therefore, with feverish ardor to whatever vestiges re- 



main of the Southern system, and will not suffer them to be wrested from 
it — vestiges which will suffice, perhaps, to bring back, sooner than is 
imagined, all the horrors of civil war. 

Leave this great agent of discord to do its work, and, from the quarrel 
between tlie President and Congress, ingrafted upon the quarrel between 
the North and South, it will bring forth disaster, to say nothing of dis- 
grace. Has it not already whispered in Mr. Johnson's ear the advice to 
resign, in order to draw from a re-election, in which the South would take 
part, the strength necessary to break down the resistance of the patriots, 
and to force the doors of Congress ? 

If ever affairs reach this pass — if the flame of passion is re-kindled, and 
the gauntlet is thus thrown down to the North, the sword will leap from 
its scabbard in every direction. 

Already, the air is full of violence. The palmy days of the South 
seem to have returned. The campaign against the negroes and their pro- 
tectors is openly commenced. We fancy ourselves dreaming at the sight ; 
we ask whether this is really 1866, whether it was really Richmond and 
not Washington that fell last year ; whether the President of the United 
States is really named Andrew Johnson ? What ! preparations are 
already being made to resist Congress and to brave its laws ! We are 
told of massacres of the negroes, and are informed that they are doomed 
to perish because their friends have had the imprudence to endow them 
with civil rights ! 

A ad it is scarcely a year since Lincoln was laid in the tomb ! 

vni. 

To be just to Mr. Johnson, it is important to take his motives into con- 
sideration. 

The state rights, of which he seems to have constituted himself the 
defender, have an importance which cannot be set at naught. To sacri- 
fice them would be to sap the foundation of the Constitution of the 
United States. 

But without accomplishing such a sacrifice, it is allowable to demand 
solid guarantees of future peace, before restoring to the rebel states the full 
exercise of their independence. This, moreover, is what Mr. Johnson 
himself has done. lie. who is terrified at the idea of exercising any 
coercion over the South, did this, and very effectively, when he imposed 
on the South the condition of adopting the constitutional amendment 
abolishing slavery. Was it believed that the cotton states would adopt 
this with enthusiasm ? Was it believed that their independence was then 
respected ? Not at all. It was simply said to them, " We do not wish 
the war to break out anew ; therefore, the cause of the war must be 
destroyed." 

What was said to them with justice can be repeated to them with not 
less justice. So long as any vestiges of the cause of the war remains, 
the guarantees of peace are not complete. Above subtle questions con- 



cerning state rights rises a grave question, namely, the right of the whole 
country to exist and to take precautions to avert the recurrence of a 
bloody struggle. 

What do we read, moreover, in the amendment abolishing slavery ? 
" Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate 
legislation.'' Thus Congress is charged to stop at no obstacle in prevent- 
ing any one from violating the constitution by annulling the liberty which 
has just been promised the former slaves. 

The objection is raised that this leads to centralization ! But the action 
of the central power has always been necessary when the general laws of 
the United States have met with factious resistance. When the South 
refused to acknowledge Mr. Lincoln, it became necessary to practise cen- 
tralization at the point of the bayonet, and to reduce the rebels of Vir- 
ginia and Texas to submission. If to-morrow the Civil Eights bill should 
not be executed by the South, it would be necessary to practise centraliza- 
tion and overcome resistance. In the same manner, when the freedom of 
the negroes is proclaimed, it is impossible to avoid practising centraliza- 
tion in order to effect a colossal transformation throughout the whole 
country. It would be puerile to imagine that such revolutions could be 
wrought without the interference of Congress and the national govern- 
ment. 

A federal service exists, moreover, in the United States ; there is a gene- 
ral legislation which is binding on all the states, and there are federal courts 
which insure its execution. There is a national army, stronger or weaker 
according to the state of the country, but which must always be sufficient 
to assist the courts and the law by arms. There are mails, there are cus- 
tom-houses. Well, there will be one more branch of the central public 
service — that of the freedmen ; there will be the interference of the law, 
the courts, and the army, for the protection of the freedmen during the 
trying period of their accession to the jurisdiction of the common law. 

You will seek in vain to avoid this necessity. Try, if you will, to have 
neither judicial nor military action when a civil rights bill has just been 
passed ! Let it not be believed that the triumph of the presidential veto 
has prevented this interference. It is in vain to propose not to interfere ; 
there is an excess of violence and injustice, there is an outcry of defence- 
less victims, which will not permit the most indifferent to fold his hands. 
Mr. Johnson himself, it is known, is practising centralization, and far be- 
yond what he imagines. 

We say further, the only means of moderating federal interference, and 
promptly putting an end to it, as we all desire, is to discourage resist- 
ance ; to prove to the South that slavery has had its day, and that it must 
resign itself to what is inevitable ; to beware of holding in reserve a 
second negro question, destined to convulse the country like the first; to 
finish what has been begun, and not to stop halfway on the road to 
equality. Then the old masters will resign themselves to necessity, and 
the freedmen will elevate their condition. Under the influence of clearly- 
defined positions, everything becomes tranquillized. In the South, which 

2 



10 



will be purified by liberty and regenerated by European colonization, the 
garrisons will daily become fewer, and the action of the central power 
less necessary. 

The partisans of Mr. Johnson accuse Congress of lacking patience, and 
urge it to wait for the progress which years will insure. By degrees, 
they say, the negro race will obtain, one after another, the rights which 
it needs ; the South itself, under the pressure of public opinion and 
the example of the North, will confer them upon it in the end ; and the 
time will come when the amendment suppressing all distinction on ac- 
count of color, will naturally obtain the normal majority of three fourths 
of the states. Why not trust to the slow but sure action of time, ideas, 
and the regular powers ? 

Why ? Because the surest action of time will be to bring about the 
destruction of a wretched race abandoned to oppression. Because the 
claims of justice and humanity are always urgent. Because it would be 
farcical to say to four millions of men who have been promised freedom : 
" Time will give it to you. In fifty or a hundred years, if your grand- 
children have not perished to the last one, the progress of ideas will ac- 
complish for you what we cannot accomplish ourselves without ofi"ending 
the rebel states." Because there is a golden moment when certain trans- 
formations can be efi'ected, while, this moment passed, they long become im- 
possible. Because experience has shown, in America itself, that the party 
which now preaches patience preached it in the same manner five years 
ago, declaring that slavery would disappear under the action of time and 
the natural progress of ideas, by the spontaneous decision of the South. 
Now, slavery, at that time, far from disappearing, was extending its politi- 
cal conquests and trailing in the mire the whole policy of the United 
States. 

Congress might hurl back to the party that surrounds and seeks to rule 
Mr. Johnson this strange charge of impatience. " Be patient," it might 
say, " do not aspire to suppress all action of the central power on the very 
morrow of a civil war, provoked by the exaggeration of the theory of 
state rights. By the application of principles, the equitable establishment 
of the rights that belong to every human being, and the free development 
of the results of emancipation by the ending of the negro question, you 
will soon be able to withdraw your garrisons, your freedmen's bureaus, 
and all the measures necessitated by every transition period." 

Indeed, with respect to impatience, nothing equals the plan advocated 
by the dangerous friends of Mr. Johnson — to finish nothing, to prevent 
nothing, to suppress all protection, to sanction no right, to stifle the action 
of the central power, and to stop their ears so as not to hear the despair- 
ing cries that are about to rise from the South. 

It is easy to draw up proclamations, to declare that peace is re-estab- 
lished, and that the rebel states have regained their independence. But 
a proclamation is not a solution. This solution demands more time and 
patience than the hasty restorers of Southern independence seem to have 
in store. 



11 



Their language has not changed any more than their policy. The 
slavery party has learned nothing, and forgotten nothing. These four 
years of war have wrought no modification in it. For the word emanci- 
pation substitute civil rights, civic rights, federal protection ; you will find 
the phrases ready made five years ago. " Let the South alone. The 
South loves the negroes, and will paternally restore their freedom ; the 
only thing that stops it is your irritating interference. Do not interpose 
your unskilful hand between the whites and the blacks ; do not speak, do 
not act, propose no bill, write no newspaper article, make no appeal 
either to the central administration, or to the courts of justice, and you 
will see that the South, left to herself, will solve the problem of slavery." 
America cannot be twice duped by such language. There are changes 
which cannot be accomplished by ordinary means or regular channels. 
To permit a negro to vote is an enormity, an overthrow of all received 
ideas, an offence to public morality ; the prejudices of race are wounded 
thereby as they would be by a crime, as they will be to-morrow by 
the civil rights of the negroes — " a negro must not be whipped ! A 
negro can prosecute a white man in a court of law !'' it will be said — as 
they were yesterday by the emancipation of the negroes, when the cry 
was raised, "What! these negroes free to quit their masters, to work 
where they like, or even not to work at all ! All these men to be treated 
as men, and to have a wife and children of their own !" 

These are enormities which men accept when they are conquered, to 
which they become accustomed, even speedily, when the questions have 
assumed the character of accomplished facts, but in which they never 
themselves take the lead. 

The point in question is nothing less, in fine, than to introduce a trans- 
formation of the utmost importance into the organization of the United 
States. Yet it is wished to do this without increasing for the moment the 
military and judicial administrative supervision of the central power ! 
And the sages who wish this'style themselves practical men, the enemies of 
abstract principles ! 

The fact is that, under penalty of relapsinfr into second childhood, it is 
necessary to resolve to employ means in propur n to the work to be ac- 
complished. To overthrow an institution as important as slavery, and to 
pluck up the roots that it has left in American soil, is a task of sufficient 
magnitude to require the action of the central power. This power alone 
has conquered the rebellion ; this power alone can destroy the cause of 
the rebellion. 

The more prompt" and resolute its action, the sooner it will become un- 
necessary. The means of speedily arriving at the day we all desire, when 
this action can cease, and local independence resume its full sway, is to 
annihilate to-day the last vestiges of slavery, and to snatch from the revi- 
ving slavery party theilast shreds of the bloody banner around which they 
are already seeking to rally. 



12 



IX. 

Why have the sincere and enlightened counsellors which Mr. Johnson 
has still around him not warned him of the perils in the path to which 
he is urged. This road is paved with fatal illusions. — " Sacrifice emanci- 
pation to Union," it is said to the President, " and you will directly 
secure to America the concord, tranquillity and prosperity of which she 
is so much in need. After so rude a crisis, it is right that she should re- 
pose, should she leave some interests to sufi'er, however worthy of respect, 
and some rights, however precious." 

Far from escaping agitation by such a course, the nation plunges into 
it head foremost. It is in the name of the Union that this pretended 
Union policy must be opposed. It is in the name of peace that this pre- 
tended peace policy must be combated. 

Union and emancipation are henceforth inseparable, as we cannot often 
enough repeat ; they are dependent upon each other. Whoever attacks 
one attacks the other. 

Is there a surer means, we ask, of endangering the Union than to leave 
the slavery quarrel unfinished ? It is proposed to prevent a reconciliation 
between the North and the South, in order to profit by their dissension. 
Placed face to face with a definitive state of afi'airs, knowing that neither 
emancipation nor any of its results was longer open for discussion, and 
seeing none but men and equals on American soil, the North and South 
would soon abandon the struggle. By degrees, perhaps very soon, other 
questions and interests would produce new combinations, and substitute 
disputes of a difi"erent kind for those which always have been and always 
will be dangerous to the Union. But leave any germ whatsoever of the 
quarrel remaining, and the conflict will break out anew on the old ground, 
and with the old bitterness. As for the South, everything -will be subordi- 
nate to the one thought of undoing what has been done, abolishing 
abolition, reconstructing slavery under a borrowed name, and taking re- 
venge at the expense of the negroes while waiting for the opportunity to 
take it on the friends of the negroes and the whole North. 

Mr. Johnson is afraid that the protection of the freedmen will compel 
him to keep too many federal soldiers in the South ! He will be forced to 
send a much greater number thera when atrocities shall be committed, 
when rebellion shall break out, and when it shall be necessary perhaps to 
put down a new Southern insurrection. 

In the face of facts, and from the first step, the Platonic re-establishment 
of the Union appears in its true light— a pure chimera, such as might be 
conceived by a cabinet dreamer, but could never be adopted by a 
statesman. 

Even now the conquered of yesterday talk boldly of resisting the bills 
which displease them, of treading under foot the judicial decisions which 
fetter their movements, of holding their former slaves in a state of sub- 



13 

jection, whether they will or no, of excluding them from the common law, 
of punishing moral interference by violence, and of repulsing material in- 
terference. A few months more of this policy and Mr. Johnson will have 
the double honor of having destroyed the Union and re-established 
slavery. 

It is not enough to cry peace, peace ! It is necessary also to do the 
work of peace. What do you think will become of the peace of the 
country when the South is authorized to believe that it has the President 
on its side, when Congress and its acts are considered unconstitutional by 
the President, and when the veto power seems to have no other object than 
that of defending the policy of the South ? 

It is the President in person who declares to the South, that the South 
is in the right, that it has been wronged, that it has returned in the pleni- 
tude of its rights, that the pretension to the right of protecting the negroes 
is illegal, that the thought of transforming them into citizens is deplorable, 
that the secession of the North is equivalent to that of the South, and that 
Mr. Sumner is walking in the footsteps of JefiFerson Davis. Is it far from 
this to conflict, the taking up of arms, and civil war ? 

Oh, the imprudence of pretended sages, the revolutionary radicalism of 
pretended conservatives, the everlasting story of fanatics of repose, who 
go about demanding peace through the violation of principles, not know- 
ing that the only peacemakers here on earth are justice and truth ! 

If America desifes repose (and nothing is more natural than that she 
should do so), let her address herself to truth and justice. Sincere eman- 
cipation, security for the freedmen, the proclamation of the equality of 
races — this is what will tranquillize the country. Put an end to the 
negro question, re-establish harmony between the President and Congress, 
issue an amnesty, open the doors of Congress to the representatives of the 
South, and the agitation which is now hourly increasing will speedily 
cease. You will no longer fear negro insurrections or negro massacres, 
the cotton states, so long closed to colonization by slavery, will no longer 
be closed to it by insecurity and violence. Planting will revive, pros- 
perity will flourish anew ; the two great, inseparable causes, Union and 
emancipation, will have triumphed together. 

X. 

The condition of peace, of a return to the regular working of affairs, 
of the suppression of dictatorships, and of resistance to centralizing tenden- 
cies, is, therefore, precisely the opposite of what is advocated by the old 
party which is re-organizing around Mr. Johnson. The reconciliation of 
what it is striving to divide — union and emancipation, the President and 
Congress — this is the simple secret of true peace. 

"We desire neither the triumph of the President nor that of Congress. 
We desire the triumph of justice, through the necessary and easy har- 
mony of the great public powers. In this deplorable conflict — of which 
we hope soon to see the end — all the errors have not been on one side. If 



14 



those of Mr. Johnson have, for some time past, greatly exceeded those of 
his adversaries, he nevertheless gives the elements for a reconciliation, 
since each one has something to yield, vk'ithout compromising the right. 

The maintenance of the freedmen's bureau for two or three years, with- 
out increasing its powers or the number of its agents ; the suppression of 
all distinction in suffrage, founded on color, leaving to each state, how- 
ever, the liberty to fix conditions common to all, conditions which may 
retard the entrance of the negroes into political life; the curtailment of 
all supplementary representation granted to the South on account of its 
slaves; the re-opening to the South of the doors of Congress, and the 
proclamation of a general amnesty — such are the essential features of a 
programme which all might accept, a programme which no one would 
have had the merit of inventing, since it arises from the necessities of the 
situation, and is self-evident to every reflecting mind. 

This programme once adopted and firmly executed, Mr. Johnson will 
have the satisfaction of giving full scope to his generous ideas, by re- 
ducing the army, lessening the expenses, and suppressing the exceptional 
powers. In proportion as emancipation becomes a reality, and the ne- 
groes definitively take their place among the citizens, the precautions of 
the transitional regime will become useless, and the momentary interven- 
tion of the central government will cease. The independence of the sepa- 
rate states will be wholly restored as soon as the security of the United 
States shall have been sheltered from the perils to which it is exposed by 
the negro question. 



^i '^^m^^f^^" XI. 

^ The power of principles, indeed, is marvellous. Men may deride them ; 

they may say to their champions, "Cling to abstract justice; as for us, we 
know how to discern practical questions, and to take facts into account." 
It will be found in the end that this abstract justice is the most practical 
thing on earth. Principles are the most real, the most tangible, the most 
pertinacious of facts. America has just gloriously experienced this; her 
principles have been her strength ; her principles have been her buckler 
against foes within and without ; her principles have been her victory. 

And the day that Mr. Johnson deviated from his principles, he came into 
collision with facts. In ceasing to be the man of principles, he became 
the man of pure abstractions, of chimeras ; he imagined that it sufficed to 
proclaim peace to establish it, and to declare the Union restored to sup- 
press all discord. 

In the troubled waters through which America is now passing, in the 
confused seething of the South on the brink of a transformation without 
which it must perish, one light alone can guide the government of the 
United States, the light of principle. Let it follow this without turning 
to the right or the left, let it have faith in principle, and its success is 
certain. 

Let us distrust sophisms which make a distinction between expediency 



15 

and justice. Justice alone is expedient. An eloquent outburst within the 
walls of the Senate called this to mind a few days ago, '•' Ah, sir, can any- 
thing be expedient which is not just ?" The orator who thus gave the 
watchword of the position is among those who had sustained a prolonged 
battler against slavery, and who well knew the value of expedients and 
what is gained by being adroit at the expense of the right. Patiently, 
firmly, sure that the good cause could not perish, he and his fellows have 
waited, they have conquered, and they will not give way at the last mo- 
ment. 

These men, whatever may be their incidental errors, are the glory and 
consolation of our time. The attachment inspired in us by America has 
increased as we have seen Congress ranging itself on their side. It might 
have been believed that, the war ended, the United States would have 
hastened to forget the right, and to rush headlong into the short-sighted 
calculations of false prudence. Nothing of the kind has occurred ; the 
banner of emancipation still floats, thank God ! and we greet it with 
acclamations on this side of the Atlantic. 

We are far from yon, and certain details may escape us ; but be sure 
that our eye grasps the view as a whole. With respect to the great 
questions, the great outlines of your policy, we entreat you to have some 
confidence in your European friends. They have been faithful to yon 
through your dark days : they now watch with a jealous eye over that 
holy and noble victory in which they have participated through their 
prayers, and which should neither be endangered nor sullied. 

As to what would sully and endanger it, we are unanimous in our 
opinion. The men among us who have worn the colors of the South for 
the last four years will give you other counsels. As for us, we do not 
hesitate to say to you, " Support Congress ; bring back the President. He 
must feel himself ill at ease in a camp which is not his own.'' 

If, to his misfortune and yours, Mr. Johnson persists in separating 
union from emancipation, in reorganizing the slavery party, and in re- 
lying on the South in opposition to the North, if he succeeds in crushing 
by this retrogressive body the majority of both houses of Congress, then 
those who now encourage him in Europe will triumphantly raise the mock- 
ing cry, " You see that we were right, and that slavery was not the cause of 
the war, for the Americans have avoided really destroying it after peace. 
Those great principles were nothing but great pretexts. The American 
nation has been, is, and will be the nation of the dollar. The philanthropic 
farce is played out ; you will see now with what an air it will witness the 
tragedy of the extermination of the negroes when its national interests are 
no longer at stake." 

The present partisans of Mr. Johnson hope soon to have the opportunity 
of thus insulting the cause that triumphed under Mr. Lincoln. You will 
not permit it, gentlemen; you, the steadfast supporters of this cause; you 
who have employed such devotion and moderation in its service; you, who 
are strangers to party spirit, who bear hatred to no one, and who desire 
no other triumph than that of the right. 



J 




16 „ „ 

013 785 634 7 

Your sentiments are ours. Our common motto is that beautitui icAt ui 
the Bible, "Justice exalts a nation." What a commentary on this text has 
been written among you during the last five years ! 

In the time of Mr. Lincoln, you were exalted in proportion as you were 
just. So long as the counsels of the old school of compromise prevailed, 
you experienced defeat after defeat; as soon as you obeyed the com- 
mands of justice, you began to be successful. Then you became invinci- 
ble ; then Europe understood that she could not interfere ; then she 
secretly repented of having transformed insurgents into belligerents, and 
of having aggravated, at her pleasure, your civil war and the sufferings of 
her own manufacturers ; then you contradicted, one after another, the 
prophecies of calamity, defeat, bankruptcy, the secession of the West, the 
dissensions of tbe North, insurrections, anarchy, the omnipotence of the 
army, and the destruction of liberty ; then you re-elected your Lincoln, 
and thus signified to the South that you were determined to go through 
with what you had undertaken. On the day that you proclaimed the 
emancipation of the slaves, you, in reality, took Richmond, re-established 
the Union, and insured the future prosperity of America. — Justice exalts 
a nation. 

For some time past, the fatal counsels of the Democratic party have 
tended to resume their sway. This party is attempting to prove to you 
that it is better to be at peace than to be just; that it is better to re-es- 
tablish the Union than to be just; that it is better to restore local liber- 
ties than to be just. Meanwhile, peace recedes, union gives place to dis- 
cord, and local liberties remain suspended. You will have liberty, union, 
and peace, only through justice. — Justice exalts a nation. 

A. De Gasparin, 

Henri Martin, 

AuGusTiN Cochin, 

# 

Edouard Laboulaye. 



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